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Out with credit-card sized stock and in with mobile ticketing - is it too early?

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BayPaul

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Just to be controversial...

What do people think about an additional fee for paper tickets (even if purchased in a ticket office or machine, obviously there is normally one already for posting them). If it costs extra to provide tickets in this way, I don't see why those of us who are happy to use the cheaper e-tickets should effectively subsidise those who prefer to have paper for whatever reason. Ideally, this supplement could be set annually to accurately indicate the actual cost - e.g. if the cost for providing the additional infrastructure was £10M, and the orange piece of paper was 10p, and 20M paper tickets were sold, then an additional charge of 60p would be appropriate.
 
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6Gman

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But you haven't compared fairly there.
I'd suggest the majority of people do have a smartphone that is reliable and charged.

Sometimes people make problems for themselves.

I mean, do you walk around with your phone turned off?

Yes.

Why not?

Saves battery power.
 

317 forever

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If so, they don't tell you that though!

Last Wednesday (01/07), I booked a ticket for travel next week on the GWR website. I was looking for a print at home or pdf ticket, but all it offered me were:
  1. Some form of electronic ticket, which it told me had to be downloaded to, and stored in, the GWR app
  2. Paper ticket by post
  3. Paper ticket from TOD machine.
Now I don't trust relying on a phone app, nor do I trust TOC apps to be secure or reliable, so that rules out (1). I've had problems with a faulty TOD machine at my local station, and have no wish to waste another half day trying to resolve them, as happened last time, so that rules out (3). So the only option it left me was to have a paper ticket posted to me, at my expense, which is what I did.

At least now I have the ticket physically in my possession :)

Talking about not relying on TOD machine, I had a ticket for last Saturday departing just after 7am, which was before the ticket office was due to open. So, fearing that the machine might not be working, I collected the tickets on Friday instead.

Just to be controversial...

What do people think about an additional fee for paper tickets (even if purchased in a ticket office or machine, obviously there is normally one already for posting them). If it costs extra to provide tickets in this way, I don't see why those of us who are happy to use the cheaper e-tickets should effectively subsidise those who prefer to have paper for whatever reason. Ideally, this supplement could be set annually to accurately indicate the actual cost - e.g. if the cost for providing the additional infrastructure was £10M, and the orange piece of paper was 10p, and 20M paper tickets were sold, then an additional charge of 60p would be appropriate.

A bit premature, as e-tickets for rail are not yet mainstream. Eventually, there will be merits in this though.
 

AM9

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Just to be controversial...

What do people think about an additional fee for paper tickets (even if purchased in a ticket office or machine, obviously there is normally one already for posting them). If it costs extra to provide tickets in this way, I don't see why those of us who are happy to use the cheaper e-tickets should effectively subsidise those who prefer to have paper for whatever reason. Ideally, this supplement could be set annually to accurately indicate the actual cost - e.g. if the cost for providing the additional infrastructure was £10M, and the orange piece of paper was 10p, and 20M paper tickets were sold, then an additional charge of 60p would be appropriate.
That's maybe OK if the actual cost was relected in any additional charge. But using my example, the cost of a QR code is the same for both a printed ticket and one shown on a mobile device. The cost of a paper ticket, (as opposed to a mag stripe card ticket) certainly isn't 10p or even 1p. If it is printed from a pdf,the cost to the railway is zero. If it is printed by a TVM or a booking office machine, it would be no more than 100mm of an 80mm paper ticket roll, - that cost being almost unmeasurable.
At the same time, those wishing to use on-board power on trains because they won't carry a portable charger should contribute to the cost of installing and maintaining power outlets on trains and guards/RPOs having to carry a portable charger, plus the occasional extra time whilst a shut down phone boots up. Those with printed tickets never need any of that infrastructure to travel.
This could go on forever, trying to find additional costs of modes of ticketing that didn't suit posters whilst ignoring the downsides of their ticket method. Your suggestion of 60p is totally unsubstantiated.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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If it is printed from a pdf,the cost to the railway is zero.
Well, not quite. It's certainly not free to come up with, and maintain, a working database to support the creation, administration and checking of such tickets. And each database entry for a given ticket takes up space and computing power. Negligible for a given ticket, but I'd have thought it adds up to quite a few million a year over the scale of the National Rail system.
 

AM9

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Well, not quite. It's certainly not free to come up with, and maintain, a working database to support the creation, administration and checking of such tickets. And each database entry for a given ticket takes up space and computing power. Negligible for a given ticket, but I'd have thought it adds up to quite a few million a year over the scale of the National Rail system.
If it is printed from a PDF, it would be on the same database that issues the QR codes for the electronic tickets, so the user prints at home which costs the railway nothing extra.
 

BayPaul

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That's maybe OK if the actual cost was relected in any additional charge. But using my example, the cost of a QR code is the same for both a printed ticket and one shown on a mobile device. The cost of a paper ticket, (as opposed to a mag stripe card ticket) certainly isn't 10p or even 1p. If it is printed from a pdf,the cost to the railway is zero. If it is printed by a TVM or a booking office machine, it would be no more than 100mm of an 80mm paper ticket roll, - that cost being almost unmeasurable.
At the same time, those wishing to use on-board power on trains because they won't carry a portable charger should contribute to the cost of installing and maintaining power outlets on trains and guards/RPOs having to carry a portable charger, plus the occasional extra time whilst a shut down phone boots up. Those with printed tickets never need any of that infrastructure to travel.
This could go on forever, trying to find additional costs of modes of ticketing that didn't suit posters whilst ignoring the downsides of their ticket method. Your suggestion of 60p is totally unsubstantiated.
That's maybe OK if the actual cost was relected in any additional charge. But using my example, the cost of a QR code is the same for both a printed ticket and one shown on a mobile device. The cost of a paper ticket, (as opposed to a mag stripe card ticket) certainly isn't 10p or even 1p. If it is printed from a pdf,the cost to the railway is zero. If it is printed by a TVM or a booking office machine, it would be no more than 100mm of an 80mm paper ticket roll, - that cost being almost unmeasurable.
At the same time, those wishing to use on-board power on trains because they won't carry a portable charger should contribute to the cost of installing and maintaining power outlets on trains and guards/RPOs having to carry a portable charger, plus the occasional extra time whilst a shut down phone boots up. Those with printed tickets never need any of that infrastructure to travel.
This could go on forever, trying to find additional costs of modes of ticketing that didn't suit posters whilst ignoring the downsides of their ticket method. Your suggestion of 60p is totally unsubstantiated.
My 60p figure was just an example of how you would calculate it, not trying to be a realistic figure. However, I suspect the numbers are quite high... OK, (and this isn't me complaining, just trying to work it out for myself) let's have a go at what costs could be avoided if everyone used etickets, and either printed them at home or downloaded them to a phone.
  • Ticket offices at all but major stations could close
  • Ticket machines with cash acceptance and complex printing systems could be replaced with simple touch screens providing journey info (and if fitted with a simple thermal printer could also allow eticket purchase and printing, without they could send the ticket to your phone. Personally I would include the printer)
  • Guards would no longer need to carry cash, or custom made ticket machines - ticket checks could be done using an app on a regular phone
  • All of the time, security and banking costs of dealing with cash.
  • New Ticket barriers would no longer need the maintenance heavy magnetic strip readers, instead having bar code readers with no moving parts
Obvious caveat - if etickets replaced credit card type, but bar code printed paper etickets were still available from ticket offices etc, then several of these items on the list could be removed.

Obviously this is a long term list - probably we would be 10 years away from being in such a position, but at that time, it would possibly seem reasonable to charge an additional fee to those who want to use the old system.
 

yorksrob

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it would possibly seem reasonable to charge an additional fee to those who want to use the old system.

I think that as a principle, we shouldn't be adding additional complexity to the fares structure.
 

AM9

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My 60p figure was just an example of how you would calculate it, not trying to be a realistic figure. However, I suspect the numbers are quite high... OK, (and this isn't me complaining, just trying to work it out for myself) let's have a go at what costs could be avoided if everyone used etickets, and either printed them at home or downloaded them to a phone.
  • Ticket offices at all but major stations could close
  • Ticket machines with cash acceptance and complex printing systems could be replaced with simple touch screens providing journey info (and if fitted with a simple thermal printer could also allow eticket purchase and printing, without they could send the ticket to your phone. Personally I would include the printer)
  • Guards would no longer need to carry cash, or custom made ticket machines - ticket checks could be done using an app on a regular phone
  • All of the time, security and banking costs of dealing with cash.
  • New Ticket barriers would no longer need the maintenance heavy magnetic strip readers, instead having bar code readers with no moving parts
Obvious caveat - if etickets replaced credit card type, but bar code printed paper etickets were still available from ticket offices etc, then several of these items on the list could be removed.

Obviously this is a long term list - probably we would be 10 years away from being in such a position, but at that time, it would possibly seem reasonable to charge an additional fee to those who want to use the old system.
So long as the national rail network is a public service, it should be available to all and not dependent on the purchase or ownership or an expensive electronic device. Furthermore, there are ways for virtually zero additional cost physical tickets to be used alongside whatever the latest electronic fad that some want to follow. Note, I have no problem with owning and using a mobile phone for many non-telecomms purposes, but I would strongly object to anybody being forced to posess and use such a device as a condition of travel. A sizeable number of adults are unable to possess or operate such a device, and much as you seem to infer, they are not all too old or just being difficult to do so. If managed properly, the inconvenient mag stripe tickets can be replaced with something that is as convenient to the passenger but with virtually zero additional cost yet still provide the same 'public' service that is part subsidised from the public purse. Read my post #111 in this thread for a suggestion as to how. Would you next propose that patients presenting at a doctor's surgery or a hospital will be unable to get treatment unless they have an 'e-appointment' on a phone? Just think of the number of hospitals or nurses that could be paid for with the savings in postage alone. Don't let your enthusiasm for all the possibilities that the media says are 'benefits' further create a disadvantaged subsection of society.
 
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Energy

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I think the barcode or qr code idea is the best, the tickets are cheap and recyclable and can easily integrate with phone based ticketing which just displays a qr code or barcode on the screen, I don't think a cost should be associated with a paper ticket except for maybe the London Underground.
 

35B

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Just to be controversial...

What do people think about an additional fee for paper tickets (even if purchased in a ticket office or machine, obviously there is normally one already for posting them). If it costs extra to provide tickets in this way, I don't see why those of us who are happy to use the cheaper e-tickets should effectively subsidise those who prefer to have paper for whatever reason. Ideally, this supplement could be set annually to accurately indicate the actual cost - e.g. if the cost for providing the additional infrastructure was £10M, and the orange piece of paper was 10p, and 20M paper tickets were sold, then an additional charge of 60p would be appropriate.
It works if you believe that the ethics of the theatre ticket industry are an appropriate model, where a whole raft of charges that are inherent to the transaction are presented as “extras”, so increasing the cost of the transaction.

The ticket is a legal requirement for travel and it is to me unacceptable for the retailer to make an additional charge to provide that ticket in a form that the traveller can reasonably carry. That includes, for me, the charge for posting out tickets to the traveller and, where levied, charges for collecting tickets from a TVM. For these charges to be backed up by the legal force of the railway operator’ prosecutory powers is, to me, beyond the pale.
 

Re 4/4

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I don't see why those of us who are happy to use the cheaper e-tickets should effectively subsidise those who prefer to have paper for whatever reason.

The snappy retort to that is, for the same reason we don't charge customers in wheelchairs extra for taking up more space, and for the cost of the portable ramps at stations.

The more polite way of putting it is that my late grandmother had to move from her own flat to a care home partly because some of the services she needed were becoming less and less accessible as they went "digital". Age isn't a disability, but it is a protected characteristic under the Equality act - yes I know the legal protection that provides is quite limited, but from a moral perspective, discriminating against people who didn't have smartphones when they were young and would find it a challenge to learn now seems wrong. It was not a question of whether she was happy to go digital, she wasn't able to.


Another example why I personally am not going to use m-tickets or anything phone related for tickets any time soon: did you know that if your employer uses Microsoft Exchange as their e-mail service, and you install their app to read your work e-mail, then you're giving them the ability to lock and wipe your phone remotely? Meant for if you report it lost or stolen, of course. That's just one of dozens of things that could go wrong, but would ultimately leave me liable if I'm not able to present a valid ticket to an authorised official on demand.

Over here in Bristol, First bus introduced m-tickets supposedly to make boarding faster compared to fiddling with cash. You can still buy a paper ticket with cash, but it costs 50p more for a single or £1 more for a day ticket. They didn't make tickets cheaper when they introduced this, even though it makes boarding more efficient and saves on paper - the m-ticket is the same price as before, paper is now 50p extra (even though it's till roll with a QR code, not magstripe). Presumably the m-ticket also gets them lots of resellable customer data. The thing is, you can also buy with your contactless card, which solves the cash problem - but that still gets you the higher tariff, you have to use the stupid m-ticket system or a smartcard that can only be loaded at the central bus station if you don't want to pay extra. So I don't trust the industry that a move to e-tickets won't be used to increase prices and gather all kinds of extra data without most people noticing.
 

Bletchleyite

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The snappy retort to that is, for the same reason we don't charge customers in wheelchairs extra for taking up more space, and for the cost of the portable ramps at stations.

Obviously the difference here is that you don't choose to be in a wheelchair, you do choose your method of buying a ticket.

Personally I would have no issue with the idea of, say, £1 extra from the booking office or on board and 50p extra from a TVM, though only 50p to be charged at the booking office if there is no TVM or it's out of order, and similarly only 50p on board if the origin has no TVM or it's out of order. If you don't want to pay those, buy an e-ticket.

It'd also be nice to have a feature whereby you could log into your online account in some way on the TVM and reprint for that same 50p if you're having an issue with your phone, or similarly £1 for a booking office reprint.
 

Re 4/4

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you don't choose to be in a wheelchair

Which is precisely my point - there are elderly people who aren't choosing to stick with paper tickets, they're simply unable to learn the whole email, smartphone, internet, passwords, apps shebang.
 

Bletchleyite

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Which is precisely my point - there are elderly people who aren't choosing to stick with paper tickets, they're simply unable to learn the whole email, smartphone, internet, passwords, apps shebang.

No, they're technology refuseniks. The number of "silver surfers" proves as much, and mobile phones are much easier to use and more intuitive than Windows PCs, in particular Apple ones.

If their preference for old-fashioned methods of conducting business cost money, as maintaining TVMs and staffing ticket offices does, it's quite reasonable that they should contribute to the additional cost of the provision of those methods. And if the Government decides that the railway should do some job creation, there are far more useful roles than hiding someone behind a piece of glass churning out bits of paper.
 

Re 4/4

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I disagree. My grandfather was capable of picking up new technology with a bit of help, and as long as he was alive he took care of anything "online" in the houeshold. My grandmother, try as she might, was simply not capable of learning any of it in her old age - nothing the rest of our family or the "support" people at the bank could do changed that, and it's not like we didn't try.

Even if something like 90% of people over 80 could manage to use a smartphone if their life depended on it, that would still leave a fair number left over that can't.

The refuseniks you mention probably exist, but so do people who are genuinely not capable of picking up new technology, and are at risk of being excluded from public transport if people take that attitude.
 

Haywain

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No, they're technology refuseniks. The number of "silver surfers" proves as much, and mobile phones are much easier to use and more intuitive than Windows PCs, in particular Apple ones.

If their preference for old-fashioned methods of conducting business cost money, as maintaining TVMs and staffing ticket offices does, it's quite reasonable that they should contribute to the additional cost of the provision of those methods. And if the Government decides that the railway should do some job creation, there are far more useful roles than hiding someone behind a piece of glass churning out bits of paper.
Defending the point about older folks - my mother, in her mid 80s, is not a ‘refusenik’ but cannot efficiently operate her smartphone and that was the case before her eyesight (in her one good eye) deteriorated.
 

Bletchleyite

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Defending the point about older folks - my mother, in her mid 80s, is not a ‘refusenik’ but cannot efficiently operate her smartphone and that was the case before her eyesight (in her one good eye) deteriorated.

Disabilities could of course be excepted - for instance, you could give out free Disabled Person Railcards to those meeting the relevant criteria (which are quite lax[1]) and anyone holding one of those would be exempted from any fee for purchase from a TVM or a member of staff, or indeed on board. You could even exempt from Penalty Fares or prosecutions for on-board purchase.

I'm happy to deal with "cannots", but I don't have much time for "will nots".

[1] My Dad for instance gets one because he's deaf in one ear, which I find a bit silly as that deafness in no way impacts on his travel by any mode of transport of any kind.
 

SS4

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E-tickets are great if you don't regularly travel by rail - they come to your device instantly and you can save or print as many copies as you like. If I lose my phone I can download to another device or simply show the print out - something which is impossible with a paper ticket. In my personal circumstances they are also good because I do not have to travel out of my way to pick up the tickets nor do I have to arrive early enough in case of a queue or a broken ticket machine.


At what point do we say it's impractical to continue to increase accessibility for an increasingly niche audience? A number of companies (that deal with far more important things than the railway such as utilties and broadband too) will charge extra for paper billing and non direct-debit methods of payment.
 

AM9

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Disabilities could of course be excepted - for instance, you could give out free Disabled Person Railcards to those meeting the relevant criteria (which are quite lax[1]) and anyone holding one of those would be exempted from any fee for purchase from a TVM or a member of staff, or indeed on board. You could even exempt from Penalty Fares or prosecutions for on-board purchase.

I'm happy to deal with "cannots", but I don't have much time for "will nots".

[1] My Dad for instance gets one because he's deaf in one ear, which I find a bit silly as that deafness in no way impacts on his travel by any mode of transport of any kind.
But just how much do these gadget evangelists really thing will be saved by by the railway by forcing every passenger to carry a fully operational smartphone whenever they travel by train. That's assuming that the proportion of potential passengers who don't currently do so don't just abandon train travel completely. This overzealous presumption that everything we do should be centred around a smartphone because they want it to be so is just the chorus of phone enthusiasts in an echo chamber. Admittedly, some of them rely on the spread of their uses for a living but that's not a particularly large proportion ofthe adult population.
 

BayPaul

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But just how much do these gadget evangelists really thing will be saved by by the railway by forcing every passenger to carry a fully operational smartphone whenever they travel by train. That's assuming that the proportion of potential passengers who don't currently do so don't just abandon train travel completely. This overzealous presumption that everything we do should be centred around a smartphone because they want it to be so is just the chorus of phone enthusiasts in an echo chamber. Admittedly, some of them rely on the spread of their uses for a living but that's not a particularly large proportion ofthe adult population.
But nobody, at all, in any part of this thread is suggesting that.
E tickets do not require a smart phone. They can be printed at home, sent to a smart card, or potentially printed at ticket machines, paypoints in shops, and sent by text, depending on exactly what system is implemented.
 

alistairlees

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But just how much do these gadget evangelists really thing will be saved by by the railway by forcing every passenger to carry a fully operational smartphone whenever they travel by train. That's assuming that the proportion of potential passengers who don't currently do so don't just abandon train travel completely. This overzealous presumption that everything we do should be centred around a smartphone because they want it to be so is just the chorus of phone enthusiasts in an echo chamber. Admittedly, some of them rely on the spread of their uses for a living but that's not a particularly large proportion ofthe adult population.
You should stop reperating that customers "need" to have a smartphone in order to buy, or use, an eTicket. It is simply untrue.

Customers can print them out, or have someone else print them out and hand them over, for instance. No-one is losing any travel rights or opportunities because of the introduction of eTickets - but a huge number of people are far better off because of the flexibility that eTickets provide, and far more comfortable and familiar with having a ticket on their phone. This has been a gain to the rail industry, with no real loss - tickets can still be bought from stations, and from TVMs (and there are way more TVMs than there were 5 or 10 years ago; and probably the same number of booking offices as there were then), though they might be a different shape or design from the "magstripe" CCST ticket - but that really doesn't matter.

Smartcards have introduced a whole other way of getting tickets too (as well as travel rights such as "pay as you go"), which, for many people, is very convenient. NFC-capable phones allow smartcards to be loaded with tickets, and there have been (and will continue to be, no doubt) trials to make smartcards work virtually on phones (not requiring a separate piece of plastic).

If anything will suffer as a result of all of this it will be Ticket on Departure (ToD), which is a much less good proposition now (when compared with eTickets).

No-one is going to be excluded by the changes that are happening. But many people are going to be likely to think (or already do think) that it's far easier to get and use a train ticket because of these changes - and that can only be a good thing.
 

Re 4/4

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Next question: I don't care too much if my ticket is magstripe, paper roll or smartcard (as long as no phone is involved) but I don't consent to my personal details being shared with "selected third parties" including advertisers and "data analysts" whenever I want to travel - I've just had a read through the GWR smartcard privacy policy.

Will this still be possible on future, or will we end up with every journey being linked to my identity and analysed for advertising purposes some day?
 

philthetube

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No, they're technology refuseniks. The number of "silver surfers" proves as much, and mobile phones are much easier to use and more intuitive than Windows PCs, in particular Apple ones.

If their preference for old-fashioned methods of conducting business cost money, as maintaining TVMs and staffing ticket offices does, it's quite reasonable that they should contribute to the additional cost of the provision of those methods. And if the Government decides that the railway should do some job creation, there are far more useful roles than hiding someone behind a piece of glass churning out bits of paper.
Sorry that's like saying that because I know an 80 your old lady who can walk ten miles they all can.I would happily pay you £1000 if you could teach my mother how to use a smart phone, and for her to retain the information for 6 months, (It would make my life so much easier), I have been trying for the last 10 years and I know it will never happen.
 

SteveM70

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No, they're technology refuseniks.

I’ve no idea if you’re being serious or just trolling with this statement. My parents are in their late 70s and the most technological thing they’ve ever been able to manage is a DVD player, and that’s after a lengthy tutorial.

They’ve never owned any sort of mobile phone, don’t have internet at home etc etc, and realistically that isn’t going to change.

But they travel a lot, and as non car owners generally by train.

Are you really suggesting they should be financially penalised because they don’t wish to pay hundreds of pounds for the technology their grandkids use?
 

AM9

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Next question: I don't care too much if my ticket is magstripe, paper roll or smartcard (as long as no phone is involved) but I don't consent to my personal details being shared with "selected third parties" including advertisers and "data analysts" whenever I want to travel - I've just had a read through the GWR smartcard privacy policy.

Will this still be possible on future, or will we end up with every journey being linked to my identity and analysed for advertising purposes some day?
I can see a case for replacing mag stripe tickets as:
1) data held on the stripe can be corrupted by magnetic fields from things found in passengers' pockets or other objects that they might be placed near​
2) they are a special pringted format that the railway needs to have manufactured, to reduce the incidences of fraudulent changes to the printed details​
3) gateline readers can be unreliable, and at times create difficulties when the ticket isn't returned to the passenger​
A ticket system based on a QR code would have the following advanteges:
1) one unique image can be generated at the time of purchase for all forms of the ticket​
2) that image can be carried as a screen display on a portable device, a home-printed paper ticket from an e-mailed pdf, or when bought as a walk-up ticket, from a very simple paper roll printer, (much like a supermarket till roll as used tens of millions of times per day)​
3) that image on any of those three media, can be read by a simple optical scanner at the gateline and by a pocket device, (including a smartphone with an appropriate software application installed) that can be carried by authorised rail personnel.​
4) that image on any of those three media cannot effectively be altered for the purposes of fraudulent travel, - the QR code would not be valid at all​
5) a scanner at a remote station would have no moving parts, no retained tickets and with the increasing 4G coverage and forthcoming 5G rollout, all checking operations can be conducted in aback offic data centre​
Most of the above is required for e-tickets so the only difference would be to update the current troublesome TVMs with simpler types that can print roll paper tickets.
There would then be no need for anybody to give their personal details to the TOCs for them to track movements and buying habits. As others have indicated, not having an internet account/smartphone/smart card/etc., is for many people not a lifestyle choice, but often linked to their health state of even just age, - so penalising them financially to reduce some of the TOC's costs would be a retrograde step that would certainly be challenged. The railway is a public service and passengers are only required to pay the fare, - not join a data gathering net.
 

MarkyT

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Next question: I don't care too much if my ticket is magstripe, paper roll or smartcard (as long as no phone is involved) but I don't consent to my personal details being shared with "selected third parties" including advertisers and "data analysts" whenever I want to travel - I've just had a read through the GWR smartcard privacy policy.

Will this still be possible on future, or will we end up with every journey being linked to my identity and analysed for advertising purposes some day?
Or in some dystopian future(?) for other more disturbing purposes...

I admit to not yet having the experience of purchasing and using an e or m ticket for rail travel. I have bought online for early morning collection from a ticket machine once (before the ticket office opened), but I've not done that again for fear of turning up to find a broken machine, after the local machine I had used on that one occasion was broken into overnight shortly afterwards and remained out of use for a long time! I like the idea of the e-ticket and for any journey more than a trivial value, I think I would always print out a copy at home for backup in case of a phone problem or loss en route.
 
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